By Edith Hamilton

Why it happened, or when, we have no idea at all. We know only that in the earliest Greek poets a new point of view dawned, never dreamed of in the world before them, but never to leave the world after them. With the coming forward of Greece, mankind became the center of the universe, the most important thing in it. This was a revolution in thought. Human beings had counted for little heretofore. In Greece man first realized what mankind was.

(Hamilton 2013, 5-7)

The Greeks did not believe that the gods created the universe. It was the other way about: the universe created the gods. Before there were gods heaven and earth had been formed. They were the first parents. The Titans were their children, and the gods were their grandchildren.

(Hamilton 2013, 21)

As the idea of Zeus became loftier, two august forms sat beside him in Olympus. Themis, which means the Right, or Divine Justice, and Dike, which is Human Justice. But they never became real personalities. The same was true of two personified emotions esteemed highest of all feelings in Homer and Hesiod: Nemesis, usually translated as Righteous Anger, and Aidos, a difficult word to translate, but in common use among the Greeks. It means reverence and the shame that holds men back from wrongdoing, but it also means the feeling a prosperous man should have in the presence of the unfortunate — not compassion, but a sense that the difference between him and those poor wretches is not deserved.

(Hamilton 2013, 40)

There is still another account of the creation of mankind. In the story of the five ages men are descended from the iron race.In the story of Prometheus, it is uncertain whether the men he saved from destruction belonged to that race or the bronze race. Fire would have been as necessary to the one as to the other. In the third story, men are descended from a race of This Story begins with the Deluge.

All over the earth men grew so wicked that finally Zeus determined to destroy them. He decided To mingle storm and tempest over boundless earth And make an utter end of mortal man.

He sent the flood. He called upon his brother, the God of the Sea, to help him, and together, with torrents of rain from heaven and rivers loosed upon the earth, the two drowned the land.

The might of water overwhelmed dark earth, over the summits of the highest mountains. Only towering Parnassus was not quite covered, and the bit of dry land on its very top most peak was the means by which mankind escaped destruction. After it had rained through, nine days and nine nights, there came drifting to that spot what looked to be a great wooden chest, but safe within it were two living human beings, a man and a woman. They were Deucalion and Pyrrha-he Prometheus’ son, and she his niece, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora. The wisest person in all the universe, Prometheus had well been able to protect his own family.He knew the flood would come, and he had bidden his son build the chest, store it with provisions, and embark in it with his wife.

(Hamilton 2013, 91-92)

Both stories agree that when they drew near to Athens he forgot to hoist the white sail. Either his joy at the success of his voyage put every other thought out of his head, or his grief for Ariadne. The black sail was seen by his father, King Aegeus, from the Acropolis, where for days he had watched the sea with straining eyes. It was to him the sign of his son’s death and he threw himself down from a rocky height into the sea, and was killed. The sea into which he fell was called the Aegean ever after.

So Theseus became King of Athens, a most wise and disinterested king. He declared to the people that he did not wish to rule over them; he wanted a people’s government where all would be equal. He resigned his royal power and organized a commonwealth, building a council hall where the citizens should gather and vote. The only office he kept for himself was that of Commander in Chief. Thus Athens became, of all earth’s cities, the happiest and most prosperous, the only true home of liberty, the one place in the world where the people governed themselves. It was for this reason that in the great War of the Seven against Thebes, when the victorious Thebans refused burial to those of the enemy who had died, the vanquished turned to Theseus and Athens for help, believing that free men under such a leader would never consent to having the helpless dead wronged. They did not turn in vain.Theseus led his army against Thebes, conquered her, and forced her to allow them to be buried. But when he was victor he did not return evil to the Thebans for the evil they had done. He showed himself the perfect knight. He refused to let his army enter and loot the city. He had come not to harm Thebes, but to bury the Argive dead, and the duty done he led his soldiers back to Athens.

(Hamilton 2013, 209-210)

He was a homeless, friendless man to whom life meant little and he determined to seek the Sphinx out and try to solve the riddle. “What creature,” the Sphinx asked him, “goes on four feet in the morning, on two at noonday, on three in the evening?” “Man,” answered Oedipus. “In childhood he creeps on hands and feet; in manhood he walks erect; in old age he helps himself with a staff.”

(Hamilton 2013, 363-364)

That is well for Thebes,” the herald cried. “Our city is not governed by a mob which twists this way and that, but by one man. How can the ignorant crowd wisely direct a nation’s course?”

“We in Athens,” Theseus said, “write our own laws and then are ruled by them. We hold there is no worse enemy to a state than he who keeps the law in his own hands. This great advantage then is ours, that our land rejoices in all her sons who are strong and powerful by reason of their wisdom and just dealing. But to a tyrant such are hateful. He kills them, fearing they will shake his power.”

(Hamilton 2013, 375)

---

References

Hamilton, Edith. 2013. Mythology. N.p.: Little, Brown.

ISBN 978-0-316-22334-8